Address at the Symposium on International Automotive Technology

Technology Powers Competitiveness

I am indeed delighted to participate in the inauguration of the Symposium on International Automotive Technology (SIAT) 2007 organized by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) in partnership with Society of Automotive Engineers India (SAEINDIA) and National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRIP). I greet the organizers, scientists, technologists, automobile, manufacturers, automobile component manufacturers, business leaders and distinguished guests. I also greet the foreign delegates participating in this symposium whose views will be valuable for the automotive industry as a whole. I am happy to know that ARAI organizes this symposium bi-annually which provides a platform for automotive technologists and researchers to share their ideas on latest technology trends, advances and applications.

Indian Automotive Industry

During the last two decades, Indian Automobile Industry has taken long strides. After 1983, the standards of automotive technology has got redefined and Indian consumers are able to get what their western counterparts are getting. Many Indian auto companies have started exporting their components to their original equipment manufacturers in the developed world, apart from servicing the Indian market. With multiple international industries participating in the automobile production in the country, the nature of competitiveness has increased in the national production and marketing. In India the vehicle production is increasing at about 17%.

The automobile industry in India accounts for a business volume of US $ 45 billion. Definitely, it has a potential to grow much faster both through Indian manufacturers and many well known international manufacturers who have established huge facilities in the country. We have to aspire to work towards increasing the business volume to US $ 200 billion by 2016 with an export component of at least US $ 50 billion. One of the major technological concern today is the US $ 45 billion automotive business consumes US $ 35 billion in foreign exchange for procurement of crude oil. Friends, you will appreciate there are two problems associated with this nationally and internationally. It contributes to environment pollution in large scale through CO2 emission, apart from the imported cost. We have to address both these problems and the research focus has to be on developing alternate fuels which will find a solution for both. This can be realized only through innovation and technology. Keeping this in mind, I have selected the topic for discussion as ?Technology Powers Competitiveness?.

Innovation is the capital

I was studying the Global Competitiveness Report for the year 2005-06. There I find in terms of Growth Competitive Index ranking Switzerland is ranked 1, Singapore is 5 US is ranked 6, Korea is 24, UAE is 32, India is 43 and China is 54. India?s growth in competitiveness is yet to pick up. For the present it has improved to 43. Growth competitiveness is determined by the innovative ability of an organization. This innovation arises from institutional initiative and the R & D productivity of the firm, shaped by policies and nature of local institutions. National innovative capacity has to be the country?s important potential to reinforce both political and economic entity with commercially relevant competitive products. This capacity is distinct from purely scientific or technical achievements and focuses on the economic application of new technology. When I am in the midst of members from automotive industry, certain recommendations have to come out of this conference by establishing certain criteria or methodology to improve our competitive index from 50 to at least 10 in less than decade. This requires the combined efforts of researchers, technologists, production engineers, business leaders and above all political systems. The major problems of growth associated with automobile industry are atmospheric pollution, and safety of the vehicle and passengers. Now, let me first discuss the research areas for finding solution to environmental pollution problems.

Environmental Pollution

The world energy forum has focused on what is going to be the status of fossil fuel based materials like oil, gas and coal in the next fifty to hundred years. It is estimated by international forecasting that the available resource of fossil material will get exhausted within the next fifty to hundred years since these resources are non-renewable. And also friends, I would also like to share with you about the recent article in the ?New Scientist? which mentions about dumping of 30 billion tonnes of carbon-di-oxide into the atmosphere by all the nations every year. This dumping primarily arises due to the use of fossil fuels which directly affects the ozone layer which is existing between 25 kms to 30 kms above the earth?s surface. As you all know, Ozone layer regulates the sun radiation and cosmic radiation on earth. Earth is experiencing both stratospheric cooling (due to ozone hole) and tropospheric warming (due to increased green house gases). The question is, how do we protect our earth by protecting the atmosphere.

This poses the challenge to automotive researchers and engineers to concentrate on improved combustion engine, alternate fuels, renewable energy sources and alternate power plants.

Improvement in Combustion Efficiency: Automobile researchers are continuously working on increasing the specific power output and reducing the fuel consumption and emissions. Today, electronic multipoint fuel injection systems has become common on all the vehicles, whereas for getting better control and precision over combustion and emission, we have to work on direct injection of gasoline for better exhaust characteristics. Gasoline direct injection permits combustion of ultra-lean fuel air mixtures under diverse operating conditions and hence can deliver higher performance with lower fuel consumption and lower emission. This technology will be applicable to four-wheelers, three-wheelers and two stroke engines.

Improvement in Diesel Engines: One of the important aspect of diesel engines is, the oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter in the emission which has to be overcome by use of advanced combustion technologies which will reduce both. Indian Automotive Engineers have to work on this area and offer the system for use in all types of diesel vehicles.

Alternate Fuels: While it is important, to continuously improve the efficiency of internal combustion engines, scientists have to concentrate on development of alternate fuels and renewable energy sources. The future generation cars and trucks have to use bio-diesel, ethanol and hydrogen. Bio-fuels are renewable and can be produced in short notice as against fossil fuels which have been generated over millions of years. Bio-fuels are carbon neutral, but they have shown slight increase in oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions. Engineers and scientists have to address this issue and find a solution to this problem. Hydrogen is considered to be the fuel for the future. It is totally an environment friendly fuel and renewable, thus removing dependence on petroleum resources.

Hydrogen powered fuel cells: Hydrogen powered vehicles are almost zero emission vehicles. We have to progressively move into fuel cell vehicles within a few decades.

Iceland Experience: During my visit to Iceland, I had a unique experience, which I would like to share with you. Friends, the President of Iceland and myself with our teams were traveling in a hydrogen fuelled bus. The bus also took us to a Hydrogen Fuel filling station and we filled up Hydrogen gas in the fuel tank and we continued our journey and discussions. I am aware that, hydrogen operated motorcycles, three wheelers and small generators have been developed in the country. In addition, Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) and Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cell (PAFC) technologies and fuel cell ? battery hybrid van have been developed. Hydrogen production from distillery waste and other renewable methods have also been developed. Hydrogen storage in metal hydrides has also been demonstrated. At present, research is in progress to further improve the performance and technology of these vehicles and generators. Particularly the Fuel cell powered automobiles will become a reality in the world. In India, an electric car company in collaboration with DRDO have developed a hybrid vehicle which can be run with a fuel cell and the cost per kilometer will be just 40 paise in addition to the pollution free operation of the Car. Also, we should know that ISRO launch vehicles use liquid oxygen and hydrogen fuel. Production of liquid hydrogen is being done in Mahendragiri Space Centre. I would urge the research community to concentrate on the areas such as high pressure storage of hydrogen, liquid storage, storage in nano-structure, development of safety codes and standards and development of dedicated engine for hydrogen fuel.

Automotive scientists and engineers have to work on the use of hydrogen in IC engine which will give lower tail pipe emissions and better fuel economy. The constraint would be the availability of hydrogen which has to be produced using different processes such as: electrolysis of water, thermal cracking of CH4, ethanol reforming and coal gasification. This is the challenge for researchers to determine a commercially viable option and make it technically feasible. Another futuristic area will be automobiles using solar panels.

CNT based solar cells for higher efficiency

Another area which the future automobile can use the solar energy based engines. Particularly, the energy produced through solar energy has to increase substantially. The low efficiency of conventional photo voltaic cells has restricted the use of solar cells for large application for power generation. Research has shown that the Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) based PV cell with multi junction device could give maximum efficiency of only 30%. Hence it is essential to launch a research mission on Carbon Nano Tube (CNT) based PV cell which has got higher level of promise in efficiency.

The CNTs provide better electron ballistic transport property along its axis with high current density capacity on the surface of the solar cell without much loss. Higher electrical conductivity and mechanical strength of CNT could improve the quantum efficiency to the order of 35%. But, this is not sufficient. Recent research has shown that the alignment of the CNT with the polymer composites substrate is the key issue and this aligned CNT based PV cells would give very high efficiency in photovoltaic conversion. The polymer composites increase contact area for better charge transfer and energy conversion. In this process, the researchers could achieve the efficiency of about 50% at the laboratory scale. Our scientists have to take up this challenge and come up with the development of a CNT based PV cell with an efficiency of at least 50% within the next three years so that it can go into the commercial production within five years. In addition, they can also take up the development of organic solar cells, dye-sensitized solar cells and third generation solar cells. The automobile specialists should work with these energy experts to get the solar cells with 50% efficiency which can be effectively used in solar power driven vehicles.

Alternative Power Plants: A few battery operated vehicles including MOPEDs and cycles have already been introduced in Indian roads. However, substantial research is required in battery technology to provide a reliable, low-weight, high density and cost effective battery to the large Indian rural population. Simultaneously, there is a need to work on hybrid electric vehicle for containing the growing environmental emission in big cities. Challenge for researchers will be in the development of drives, control electronics, transmission and low weight high capacity batteries. Now, I would like present some thoughts on safety systems.

Safety systems

While Indian Automobile Industry is growing at an impressive rate of 17%, there is a growing concern regarding the increase in number of accidents taking place on Indian roads. As per the WHO report each year road traffic accidents take away lives of 1.2 million people. India accounts for about 10% of road accident fatalities world wide equivalent to hundred and twenty thousand lives. Also, as per a survey, India looses around Rs.55,000 Crores annually due to the road traffic accidents. This necessitates important action to be taken by the automobile researchers and engineers for promoting vehicle safety.

Four-wheeler safety: Indian cars are already using seat-belts and collapsible steering column as standard features and commercial vehicles are using anti-skid breaking system. What we need is vehicles should be protected against various impacts like front, side, rear, offset, car-to-car etc. Indian technologists have to work on designing a cost effective strong cage to protect the occupants with minimal use of materials. Development of energy absorbing materials will be critical in this area. For preventing accidents in the night, we need research on adaptive front lighting, bent head light system and provision of indirect vision devices like cameras in area where driver cannot see. Research is also required to design electronic stability control for safe driving under adverse climatic conditions like during snow, rain and fog. While working on the safety systems the researches will have to keep the Indian Anthropometric data in mind so that there is no adaptation problem. Social scientists have to create such data of the Indian population for integration with automotive design.

Two wheelers safety: Two wheelers are the largest mode of transport in India. Safety of two-wheeler is largely depended upon driving discipline and adherence to traffic rules. Meanwhile researchers have to examine areas through which they can provide inbuilt safety to the vehicles. They can explore the possibility of incorporating devices like air-bags for enhancing safety.

Material and Manufacturing practices

Research in advanced materials and manufacturing will be an important area for Indian automobile industry. The materials and the process used have to aim at lower weight, lower investment, higher life, low maintenance and lower life cycle cost. Presently, Indian designs are mostly using metals for the chassis and the body. Researchers have to work on fibre reinforced composites which will have better impact characteristics and also eventually it should become cost effective for the consumers.

Large amount of composite structures are used for the construction of fuselage and the wings in the aircraft industry, for passenger aircraft and military aircraft including Light Combat Aircraft (Tejas). Composite structure has become the choice due to its high strength to weight ratio. In automobile industry, composites have not been selected so far due to its cost being high. It is essential for the researchers to find design methods by which composite structures can become a preferred choice for automobile producers.

Test and Evaluation Data

Test and evaluation data of automobile system is a very important mission, for initial certification and clearance of periodic roadworthiness status of all the vehicles. The cumulative data base of test and evaluation of various classes of vehicle carried out during the last three decades can become an important research tool as in the case of clinical data base which is used for developing new classes of medicine and diagnostic methods in the healthcare industry. I am sure the data base generated by ARAI will become an important research input for the scientists and engineers participating in this symposium.

Conclusion: Economic development and prosperity

Since the audience consist of members from the automobile researchers, manufacturers, evaluators and marketing people, I would like to talk to you about the growth of the economic development and prosperity.

- Nations Economic development is powered by competitiveness.

- The competitiveness is powered by knowledge power.

- The knowledge power is powered by Technology and innovation.

- The Technology and innovation is powered by resource investment.

- The Resource investment is powered by revenue and return on Investment.

- The Revenue is powered by Volume and repeat sales through customer loyalty.

- The customer loyalty is powered by Quality and value of products.

- Quality and value of products is powered by Employee Productivity and innovation.

- The Employee Productivity is powered by Employee Loyalty, employee satisfaction and working environment.

- The Working Environment is powered by management stewardship.

- Management stewardship is powered by Creative leadership.

For success in all missions we need creative leaders. Creative leadership means exercising the vision to change the traditional role from the commander to the coach, manager to mentor, from director to delegator and from one who demands respect to one who facilitates self-respect. For a growing automobile industry, thrust will be on the growth of number of creative leaders for all the innovative organizations.

My best wishes to all the participants of this Symposium on International Automotive Technology for success in their mission of evolving the strategies for global presence of the Indian Automobile Industry.

May God bless you !